Japanese Ambassador-Designate to China Dead

(Tokyo, Japan)

Japan's ambassador-designate to China, Shinichi Nishimiya, died on Sunday in a Tokyo hospital, the Foreign Ministry said, three days after he was found unconscious on a Tokyo street.

Doctors were looking into the cause of death, ministry official Takashi Ariyoshi said in a statement, but no other details were available.

Nishimiya, 60, was found unconscious on a street near his home on his way to work.

Nishimiya was to have left in mid-October to take over from Uichiro Niwa as Japan's top envoy in Beijing.

The death is curious given recent tense relations between Japan and China over disputed islands in the East China Sea.